Patient hoists, also referred to as patient lifts, are commonly used to raise, lower, and transport patients who are disabled or who otherwise have mobility problems. Two common types of patient hoists are the stanchion-mounted hoist and the ceiling hoist. Stanchion-mounted hoists often have a hoist assembly situated at the upper end of a stanchion having a wheeled base, whereby the hoist assembly can be wheeled to different locations. A lifting member (e.g., a spreader bar bearing a patient harness, a sling, or a spreader bar bearing a harness or sling) descends from the hoist assembly on a strap, cable, or other flexible length of material which may be wound or unwound from a motorized spool situated within the hoist assembly. Thus, for example, the hoist might be wheeled to position the hoist assembly and lifting member over or adjacent to a patient; the lifting member can be lowered to receive the patient; and the hoist assembly may then raise the lifting member and patient so that they may be wheeled elsewhere (e.g., to a bathtub) to be lowered and placed. Ceiling hoists are similar, but tend to have their hoist assemblies movably engaged to ceiling-mounted tracks such that the hoist assembly can be moved about the track from location to location, e.g., between a patient's bed and bathroom.
The controls for stanchion-mounted hoists tend to be on the stanchions and/or on the stanchion-mounted hoist assemblies, whereas the controls for ceiling hoists tend to be on wall-mounted controls and/or on the ceiling-mounted hoist assemblies. Wall-mounted controls can be problematic for ceiling hoists because the controls may not be within easy reach of the patient's caregiver while he or she is standing near the patient. Similarly, controls mounted on ceiling-mounted hoist assemblies can be too high to conveniently reach (if they can be reached at all): a user may need to fetch a stepladder or stool to adjust the controls and difficulties may arise if the patient is suspended below the hoist assembly in the region where the caregiver needs to situate the stepladder/stool. Out-of-reach controls pose particular problems when a lifting operation needs to be urgently terminated, e.g., if lifting causes pain to the patient, or if it appears during lifting that the patient is in danger of falling. For this reason, ceiling hoists sometimes bear emergency stop or “lockout” switches that can be conveniently reached by caregivers standing next to or below the hoists. A common switch of this type resembles a pull-cord for an electric light, and has a flexible cord descending from the hoist assembly. A first pull on the cord disables the hoist, i.e., halts lifting or lowering of the lifting member and/or halts other motion, such as motion of the hoist assembly along any associated ceiling-mounted track, tilting of the hoist assembly (or a portion thereof) with respect to the track, etc. A second pull on the cord then re-enables the hoist assembly, i.e., allows motion of the lifting member with respect to the hoist assembly and/or allows other motion. A disadvantage of these types of switches is that their use of the same type of (pull-and-release) motion for hoist activation and deactivation can lead to mistaken activation after deactivation occurs, owing to events such as caregiver error (e.g., the caregiver's hand “bouncing” on the cord during an emergency stop situation), owing to the cord's catching on an item in the cord's surroundings, or other factors.
Other emergency switches similarly allow hoist operation to be disabled upon pulling a flexible cord or strap, but a user must then actuate a second switch situated on the hoist assembly to re-enable hoist operation. Since the first (enable) switch (the cord) is separate from the second (enable) switch on the hoist assembly, this arrangement deters accidental re-enablement of the hoist assembly. However, re-enabling the hoist assembly is inconvenient and time-consuming owing to difficulty in conveniently reaching the second switch, as discussed above. It would therefore be useful to have available emergency stop or “lockout” switches for patient hoists which are readily reachable from the floor at areas below and/or adjacent to the hoists, and which allow disabling and re-enabling of the hoists from these areas, while protecting against accidental re-enablement.